Aahana Swrup
The Filipino horror film, ‘Kampon’ follows the story of a mysterious girl who shows up at a couple’s doorsteps and brings a world of troubles with her. Clark and Eileen Martinez, a pair of well-off spouses, have nearly everything they want in life except a child. Therefore, complications arise when a young girl, Jade, arrives at their house one night, claiming to be Clark’s biological daughter. Naturally, the man becomes eager to investigate the child’s past but finds himself ill-equipped to deal with the truth of her origins. Meanwhile, Eileen grows closer to the kid, unwittingly falling into a trap she can’t escape. Throughout the film, Jade’s character remains cloaked in a blanket of eerie mystery, steadily unraveling as the film reaches its climax. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Kampon Plot Synopsis
Despite her parents’ disapproval of her choices, Eileen cherishes her marriage to her husband, Clark, a police officer. Yet, the couple is unable to have a child even after undergoing expensive IVF medical treatments. Furthermore, his own issues prevent him from agreeing to adopt a child. However, just when the wife begins to resort to her situation, Jade inexplicably turns up at the Martinez household, claiming to be Clark’s daughter. Since the man is under the assumption that he is infertile, he refuses to believe her. Still, he can tell the girl spells trouble after recognizing her mother in the photo Jade carries as one of her scant few possessions.
The couple ends up taking Jade to the police station to run a background check on her and prepare for DNA tests to be run to discredit her claim of being Clark’s daughter. Nonetheless, Eileen decides against handing the girl over to the CPS and insists on looking after the kid herself. In turn, Jade’s presence continues to unnerve Clark, who keeps the truth of his one-night stand with the former’s mother a secret from his wife. Simultaneously, he begins noticing inexplicable sights happening around him, including the eerie presence of Jade’s extended family.
Likewise, during his job, Clark arrests a frightening young man who moves on all fours locked inside the cage of a shipping container. Meanwhile, haunting things continue happening around Jade. For instance, she jumps from a balcony during one playdate and survives. Likewise, she seems to possess the ability to bring back birds from the dead. Soon, the family’s precarious design is threatened once the DNA results return from CPS.
Kampon Ending: Who is Jade’s Mother? Is She Really Clark’s Kid?
As expected, the DNA results showcase Jade’s biological connection with Clark, declaring him her father. Years ago, the police officer cheated on Eileen with a waitress— Jade’s mother— during a work retreat. However, since he learns about his infertility during his marriage, he doesn’t want to believe Jade could be his child. Therefore, he maintains that this must be a trick for the girl’s mother to extort money after him. Nevertheless, the DNA results prove otherwise. While it is likely that Clark simply developed his infertility later in life and, subsequently, impregnated Jade’s mother in the past, the woman’s identity might have something to do with the anomaly as well.
Jade’s mother, Loretta, is introduced into the narrative at the very beginning when her brother rushes her to a healer, Amela, while the former is at death’s door. Although the older lady attempts to heal the younger woman, Loretta dies in her cottage. Nevertheless, Amela offers her brother an unseemly solution by resurrecting his sister through dark magic. As such, after performing a spell, Loretta returns to life, carrying a sigil on her body, marking her unnatural rebirth. Thus, her connection with the supernatural could have interfered with Jade’s birth, who seems to have been born with special powers of witchcraft.
After running a background check on the kid and her mother, Clark learns more about Jade’s past. As it would turn out, the mother-daughter duo were recently in a van crash that left every passenger dead, save for Jade. However, the unofficial account of the events unfolds differently. While the incident did leave everyone dead, Jade was able to use her resurrection spell to bring everyone, including her uncle, Amela, and various other passengers, back to life as near-zombies. For the same reason, many of them, including the caged individual, had taken to haunting Clark, doing Jade’s bidding for her. Since Loretta experienced the worst of the incident, losing her limbs and her head, her resurrection proves to require some extra effort from the kid.
Does Jade Bring Her Mother Back to Life?
Loretta’s previous rebirth has somehow trapped the woman’s soul in the mortal realm, allowing it to survive even in a de-limbed and beheaded body. Nevertheless, she’s only barely hanging onto the thread of life. For the same reason, Jade arrives at the Martinez residence to collect the things she requires to resurrect her mother. Loretta told her daughter about Clark, sharing the honest truth about how he left her alone after making fake promises. Thus, his daughter remains aware of his dishonest ways. Nonetheless, upon arrival at his house, Jade begins to grow close to Eileen.
Since Eileen has been desperately wishing for a child, she also allows herself to get swept up in the moment and raise the girl. However, eventually, even Eileen falls victim to the horror that surrounds the kid, hallucinating nightmares in full consciousness. Jade makes Eileen see visions of nursing the former to enhance their connection and compel her to think of the kid as her own. Although Clark arrives in the knick of time and attempts to save his wife from the devilish child, Eileen ends up protecting Jade in her daze. Consequently, Loretta’s zombie-like brother manages to knock Clark out, dragging him to the forest.
In the forest, Loretta’s body, surviving only within a torso, waits for her child to perform the ritual that would transfer her soul from the mutilated body to Eileen’s. Nonetheless, Clark frees himself from his binding before the ritual ends with the help of his co-worker, who had tracked him to the remote area. Although the other cop dies soon after, Clark manages to snatch Eileen from under Jade’s nose and make a run for their survival. Even so, their freedom is short-lived, as Eileen’s body convulses as a side effect of Jade’s spell, while Loretta’s brother attacks Clark.
In the end, Clark sustains a bullet wound that threatens to spell out his life’s end. Yet, before he dies, he points his gun toward Loretta’s body and shoots at her torso in a last-ditch attempt to foil Jade’s plans. The young girl is devastated at the scene, visibly mourning her mother’s death before the end of the ritual. However, when Eileen wakes up the following morning, Jade approaches her, referring to her as mom. The former is confused about her surroundings and enquires about Clark’s whereabouts, indicating that Eileen’s soul still resides within her body.
Nonetheless, Eileen allows Jade to guide her towards the dead police officer’s car to be driven away from the forest, which remains littered with numerous dead bodies. Loretta’s own unnatural body seems to be still alive and breathing— again signifying that Clark’s bullets had prevented Jade’s ritual from successfully resurrecting her in his wife’s body. Even so, as Jade and Eileen drive away, Loretta’s sigil appears on the latter’s body, confirming a change has occurred in the ritual’s aftermath.
Jade’s spell has likely transferred whatever occult powers had resided within Loretta following her initial rebirth to Eileen’s body. Since Jade sported supernatural powers of her own, her spirit responds to the same part of Loretta’s soul. As such, even though a part of Loretta remains trapped inside her unnatural body, a more significant aspect of her supernatural self has been transferred to Eileen. Thus, as the movie ends, Jade is content to leave with Eileen, her new mother, freshly claimed by the supernatural through the occult sigil.
Read More: Kampon: Is the Netflix Movie Inspired by a True Story?
